Passion and Injustice

My name is Maya-Lou Curtis and I is 67 years old. I is a house slave see. My job is to take care a da chillun. Ben, he three and causin’ mighty mischief, but still as sweet as buttered peas. Samantha, she eight years old got a smart mouth on her, that one. She used to be a kind thing, talkin’ sweet to me and tellin’ me stories. Now she be callin’ me all those bad names for colored folks just like da rest o’ them. Anyways, I also gots to do the cookin’ an’ cleanin’ and whatever else Madam or Boss tell me to do. Usually they got me sewin’ up new clothes especially in the winter time when they always need coats and more blankets. Sometimes I sew a new jacket for Boss when he got a special meeting with folks from work. Part o’ my job is to wake up at dawn to fix breakfast for the family. If i don’t have it warm on the table for them in time, Madam don’t allow me my supper portion. Some say I got off easy ‘cause the field work is mighty hard and all I gots to do is housework, but they ain’t never raised no chillin, plus Madam always got her eye on me an’ I do one thing outta line, she got me faster than a snake catch its prey.

Sometimes the only thing keepin’ me goin through the week is those prayer meetings we got. We fellow slaves meet up on Saturday evenings in the barn where we sing praises to the good Lord. After the worship we listen to the exhorters. Theys the two who do the preachin’. Sadly, they not able to read the Bible since of course that’s forbidden. Instead o’ that, they teach us just like Moses taught his people, by word of mouth! Those exhorters get connected to the good a Lord an’ He tell them all the right things to say so they can keep us goin’ on through our troubles and have hope for the future. Theses prayer meetings, we always have them no matter what. Our masters allow them only cause they don’t interfere with our work plus they see we work harder after them. These prayer meetings was the only joy and comfort a slave could get ‘cept from family o’course. But I ain’t got no family. I was a seperated from my mama when I was only a little tot. But Bella, she like the sister I never had!

I met Bella on her first day of the job. I remember the day, it was oa cool October afternoon in 1813. She got here at 16 years old and I had to teach her how to do the housework just the right way. We got close real fast. Bella and me could tell each other anything! One night Bella told me a very big secret. She made me promise not to tell no one this secret cause it could get her a mighty lickin’ and maybe be killed for the crime of it. Bella told me she could read! I almost hollered with delight. What a splendid thing! Maybe us slaves did have a hope and a future like the exhorters say. Bella said at her last job the lady was very sweet and kind to her and that lady taught her to read. But one day her mistress didn’t come home no more and a chubby white man came to tell her she was being sold to new masters. Sometimes Bella read to me the Bible when ever’one else is asleep. She got that old Bible from her old mistress. Now Bella startin’ to teach me to read! It’s a formidable task (I learned that word from Bella) but worth all the great risk of it. We stayed up late in the night and got up extra early in the morning teachin’ me to read. Even as I swept the floors and bathed the children I would try to remember that alphabet and how the letters go. Months passed by and with my determination to read I had progressed a lot.

“For God so loved the world He gave His only son that whoever believed in Him would have eternal life.” I slowly but surely read aloud to Bella in one of our late night sessions. “Yes!” she exclaimed! “You’ve got it! I didn’t even have to help you that time.” She gave me a congratulatory pat on the back and I smiled to myself. I was doing something worthwhile.

A few weeks later I heard Madam talkin loud to some o’ her society friends. “ What an awful, wretched book. Those Northerners always stirrin’ up trouble. It’s never nothin’ good they got to say.” She and her friends kept on like that ranting and raving ’bout some book called Uncle Tom’s Cabin. She sho was passionate against dis book like I ain’t never seen before. Bella and I was a talkin’ bout it that night. She said it about two slaves and the awful journey they done gone through to get to freedom. She said now all dem Northerners gettin’ fired up about slavery. I said about time too. No wonder Madam and Boss gettin’ so worked up for this book, it makin them look bad. I decided a book that could get everyone talkin was worth a read. I made up my mind to somehow get that book and read it. Can’t nobody change my mind now. I told Bella that. She said You’s crazier than Charles when he asked for pay. You’s gonna get yourself killed! I said “Maybe, but this is important for the future I just know it. And I’m gonna be a part of it . Besides, I guess we all gonna die someday.”